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Complaint filed over destruction of Huckabee hard drives Wednesday, Jan 31, 2007 By John Lyon Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK - Political gadfly Jim Parson's filed a complaint Tuesday with the Pulaski County prosecutor's office over former Gov. Mike Huckabee's order to crush computer hard drives in his office before stepping down as governor. The 73-year-old Parsons of Bella Vista, the self-proclaimed "inspector general of Arkansas,' said he filed a similar complaint Monday with the state Ethics Commission. He said the destruction of the hard drives deprived citizens of the right to request what should be public information under the Freedom of Information Act. Huckabee depleted the governor's emergency fund before he left office, the state Bureau of Legislative Research reported, including spending $13,000 to have computer hard drives in his office crushed. "It's almost like, you know, you're mad, you're term-limited, and you go out the door and you throw a brick through the plate window as you go out," Parsons said Tuesday. Huckabee, who was in Iowa as part of the 2008 presidential bid he announced Sunday, dismissed Parson's complaints. "This is not about destruction of state property. This is about honoring our obligations to protect the privacy of the thousands of people who had personal data on those hard drives. We carried out recommendations from the Department of Information Systems to destroy those hard drives," the former governor said through a spokeswoman, Alice Stewart. "Anyone who is familiar with the Ethics Commission is aware that Jim Parsons is well known for filing numerous frivolous complaints against various entities in state government," Huckabee added. Last year, a Parsons complaint against Mike Beebe, then attorney general and a candidate for governor, resulted in the Ethics Commission issuing a letter of caution against Beebe after a campaign worker edited a speech on a computer in the attorney general's office. Another Parsons ethics complaint last year against Secretary of State Charlie Daniels, alleging Daniels used a state-financed voter guide to promote his re-election campaign, was dismissed by the commission. |
